Maine character

Thursday

Sep 29, 2011 at 2:00 AM

From his roots as a poor Irish boy growing up in Auburn, Richard O'Leary set himself on the fast track to success by doing a little more than people expected of him and having just the right amount of luck on his side.

Samantha StePHens

From his roots as a poor Irish boy growing up in Auburn, Richard O'Leary set himself on the fast track to success by doing a little more than people expected of him and having just the right amount of luck on his side.

Documenting his life of rags to riches in his memoir, "One with the Sea," O'Leary tells his story of growing up in Maine and traveling the world with his service in the Navy, U.S. Merchant Marines and his company Cruise Ventures, Inc.

"It went from one person, me, to 25,000 employees in 55 offices in 12 states," O'Leary said of Cruise Ventures.

Overcoming great personal adversity and challenges, the Ogunquit man admitted he always had a drive to succeed, and he picked up his key to success during an assembly when he was a student at Webster Junior High School in Auburn.

"We had a speaker and he spoke about Alaska. He was very articulate. In the middle of that he said, 'To succeed in life is rather easy, all you have to do is a little more than what people expect' because so many people are trying to do a little less," O'Leary said. "That became my philosophy."

In addition to the valuable words of wisdom, O'Leary said his drive to succeed came from his poor roots.

"My father always believed in paying your way, do your share of the work, being good to people. That's how he was," O'Leary said. "A lot of what I learned came from him.

"He didn't want anything for himself, he just worked for his family. He had a job with the city of Auburn. At 6/6:30 he would go to work until 4:30, then mow lawns in summer and on weekends he'd go out and cut wood. I'd go with him and cut off the little branches," O'Leary recalled. "You live with someone like that who really loves you, some things rub off on you. He taught me so many things. He was selfless."

But it was O'Leary's love for the ocean, as expressed in the title of his memoir, that set the path for his successful life.

"My parents took me to Old Orchard. I saw the ocean and I knew that I loved it and I wanted to be near it my entire life," he recalled. "That love of the ocean is why I went to Maine Maritime Academy and into a world of ships both as a naval officer and merchant marines officer and later into business in shipping."

As a child, O'Leary said he would visit the ocean and spend all day in the water, even in the coldest weather.

"I would go home and they couldn't keep me from shaking at night but I truly loved it and it's given me an incredible career," he said.

At 25 years old, after being assigned to the SS United States, O'Leary said he began to feel special.

"When I got assigned to the greatest ship in the world, the SS United States, I started to feel singular. There were only seven people on the barge of that ship. I was 25 and the next youngest was 33," he recalled.

Despite his successes and the encouragement of friends, O'Leary said he had no initial interest in documenting it in a book.

"After I was successful in business, particularly getting closer to retirement, people would say you've had an interesting life, you should write about it. I had no interest in it," he admitted.

The change of heart came when a friend promised that if he didn't write his own story, he would write it for him.

"So I thought, 'What the hell.' I got a yellow pad and $1 pen and just started writing," he said.

But somewhere between the first chapter and the last page, writing his story became less of a task and more of a passion.

"Right near the end," O'Leary said of when his attitude changed. "I started thinking, 'This is kind of a blast really. It's kind of fun.'

"I didn't think I would do much of anything but ended up getting up around 5 or 6 every morning and write for four or five hours. Then I would read it to Barbara. Writing took about two months, the book took about a year," O'Leary explained.

Along the way, O'Leary also learned about himself.

"I've had a very interesting life. Some of it was the hard work ethic and there's some luck in there, too, there's some bad luck too, especially with the company," O'Leary said.

With every hijink from unsuccessful Broadway reviews performed by the ship's staff to crashing into bridges, O'Leary said the first three years of Cruise Ventures, Inc. were disastrous.

But with the right people to help, O'Leary steered Cruise Ventures in the right direction.

"There was nothing quite like it. Most all cruise ships went out in New York or Miami. We made contracts with those companies, it wasn't easy to do, and brought them into places they didn't normally go out of, like Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston," O'Leary explained. "Then we built the Spirit-type ships. For a long time it was a shipping company that didn't own any ships but we did everything a shipping company did.

"It was quite an adventure. I love the people who worked for my company. I gave them the company when I left. It's been quite a trip," he added.

After a life of service and founding a successful business, O'Leary said his life's greatest accomplishment was marrying his wife Barbara.

As a second marriage for both, O'Leary said Barbara brought together his three biological daughters, and Barbara's four, and transformed them into a real family.

So how does O'Leary's memoir differ from others?

"There's a paucity of language in it. It's very plain. Others are more into great detail, I just kind of wrote it how I lived it," he said. "There's a fair amount of humor in it, too. I see humor in just about everything I see. I meet a lot of interesting characters I write about in there. I view myself as a character, too."

O'Leary hopes those who pick up the memoir will walk away with a message he was told by his father as a child and learned through a lifetime of experience.

"I hope that they would believe that you can do just about anything if you really want to do it," he said, "and not to give up easily."

Richard O'Leary is finalizing details on an author night in Ogunquit. Visit his website, http://onewiththeseabook.com, for event details.

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